Orchards anonymous (aka show us your apples!)

[SilkClayFlowers]

We have 3 Apple trees so not exactly an orchard and I’ve got questions.

Anyone else’s apples incredibly slow this year?

What are you growing? ( I’ve got discovery, wintergem and Falstaff)

Can I see some pictures please and any advice for a novice Apple grower?

This is my third spring/summer with them and each has been so different in terms of growth, yield and (yet to come) taste.

Should I worry that the discoveries are so bunched together? This happened last year and lots rotted against each other.

The recommended advice is to thin the apples, take out the "king fruit", the biggest one at the end of the clump. Do this after the "June drop" when a lot of fruit falls naturally.

If you don't thin, then you may get rot as you've found, or you may get into "biennial bearing" where the trees has masses of fruit one year, then exhausts itself and has a rest the next. I've got 8 trees, and most of them have slipped into biennial bearing - it wasn't a problem because they were out of synch, so I just get different tastes each year, masses of Browlees Russet one year, lots of Cornish Aromatic the next. But recently they started to synchronise with each other, so last year I got about 250lbs, this year I won't get more than 70lbs.

Sorry I didn’t reply. I did what you said and thinned it out a bit as it started shedding. I’m hoping that will help.

The biannual bearing makes a lot of sense. There seems to be less on the trees this year but they look a better quality.

Yes, there often seems to be a trade-off. Lots of small apples or fewer large apples.